This is an interesting development, and clearly an attempt to de-value the act for journalists by denying them exclusives generated under the FOIA. It also allows the government to take credit for openess even though some hard-working campaigner or journalist actually forced the release of previously-secret information.

This is rubbish, as Lord Falconer must know perfectly well. The courts have long recognised that most media companies are commercial organisations as well as providers of news. The law acknowledges the value in intellectual property as well as in the exclusive revelation of information. Ferreting information out of Whitehall will often be time-consuming and expensive. Editors will be reluctant to assign reporters to long and labour-intensive investigations if the fruits of their inquiries will be released to every other journalist before they even have a chance to publish it themselves. …

Update: At the Guardian’s Onlineblog,Bobbie Johnson has another take: the pyjamahadeen will be the chief benefitiaries of the simultanious disclosure policy. In other words, some investigative reporter does all the legwork and some blogger takes the credit while chiding the mainstream media for failing to do its job properly.